It is often desired to utilize a fluid, such as water, as part of a display or attraction. Increasingly, the popularity of using water attractions as an integral part of domestic and commercial landscaping has moved architects and landscapers to push further and further into incorporating the decorative aspects of these water features into new building and sites. These features are incorporated through swimming pools, spas, ponds, lakes and other water features and sources found in the typical property. Various types of fountains adorn public and private plazas, parks, advertisements, and amusement parks.
To this end, recent interest and developments have been made in producing smooth, laminar flows of water which give the appearance of a solid glass or clear plastic rod in various water attractions, for instance, the fountain presentation in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas or the Dancing Frogs attraction at the EPCOT center of Disney World, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,320 to Fuller, et al. These attractions incorporate laminar flow water jets. These devices jet water like a fountain, but the water has a minimum of turbulence in it that is the water is predominantly laminar. The water tension of the flow issuing forth provides the tubular shape. The water tension forms an outer jacket around the laminar flow, creating a laminar tube shape. This results in the smooth rod structure of the streams that are issued from the jets.
A first step in providing a laminar flow tube in a laminar flow jet is to produce a laminar water flow. These jet and fountain devices have used a wide variety of elements to instill laminarity into a water flow. Various attempts with a variety of elements have been made at reducing laminarity in a water stream. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,393,991 to Jeffras et al. discloses a sonic water jet nozzle which utilizes an elongated conical nozzle which includes fin-like members to reduce the turbulence of the water and to produce a laminar flow of water. U.S. Pat. No. 3,321,140 to Parkison et al. discloses an attachment for a faucet which utilizes a series of fins in a cylindrical nozzle for producing a laminar flow of water to reduce the splash on the bottom of a sink or tub. U.S. Pat. No. 3,730,440 to Parkison teaches a laminar flow spout which utilizes a plurality of independent nozzles arranged within a single spout which results in a plurality of streams having laminar flow characteristics. Systems like these and Applicant's co-pending application for a Laminar Flow Water Jet with Pliant Member provide the laminar flow tubes that are so desirable in water attractions.
In addition to providing a laminar flow, it is often desirable to provide a controlled interruption to the jet operation for the purposes of providing an artistic display. Again, referring back to the EPCOT display, the laminar flow jets function in a timed manner to provide an interesting display of water leaping from the frogs. There are various methods for producing columnarization or a controlled interruption of the laminar jet flow to produce discrete tubes. This is typically done by a mechanical diversion of the flow or a part of the flow for a controlled period of time.
Examples of this type of device can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,283 which discloses a stream diverter that utilizes a diverter nozzle to split an output stream in a controlled fashion. This results in an interruption of the columnar length prior to its emergence from the device. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,750 discloses a spinning disk that interrupts the laminar flow after leaving the laminar flow water jet with a rotating wheel to simulate a jumping fish. However, these devices do not permit interruption of the laminarity without diversion of the flow jet or disruption of the column of the jet and, further, the devices do not provide a controllable energetic impulse or pulse to interrupt the jet.
Similarly, along these lines, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,717,383 a programmable fountain controller is shown for varying the flow rate of a fountain pump in a predetermined manner so as to generate dynamically changing flow patterns. These include an audio input amplifier that sends signals to vary the pumps in time to the input. This design however fails to provide a pulse wave or any similar disruption of the flow in a laminar flow water jet.
Although there are devices available that add vibratory or oscillatory pulses into a water stream, for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,808 that shows a shower head vibrator is attached to the resilient coupling provided between the water outlet pipe and the shower head that produces an oscillatory pattern in the flow, these devices do not provide the controlled interruption necessary to maintain laminarity in a laminar flow water column. Instead, these devices oscillate a turbulent flow in a random fashion, typically to produce a massaging pulse or oscillating pressure variation for massaging a user. They fail to provide for a laminar flow column, much less the interruption of the laminar flow column in a controlled fashion with an energetic pulse.
To date, no method has been able to selectively interrupt the laminarity within the laminar jet tube of a laminar water jet without significant visible disruption or diversion of the laminar jet. Moreover, no method to date has allowed for a level of variation in the interruption of the laminarity in the laminar jet tube that would allow for both discrete jet tube lengths, i.e. columnarization, as well as multiple segments within a tube or columnarized flow, i.e. discrete segmentation. Furthermore, no system can produce columnarization or segmentation and allow for discrete multiple color effects in the tubes or in columns. Thus a need exists for a controller and a method of controlling a laminar water tube or jet that allows for selective interruption of the laminarity within the tube with or without the discrete columnarization of the tube, especially a method that utilizes an energetic pulse.